Medieval
Sources

1000-1450

copyright 1997-present by Historical Novelists Center

These are the original sources of history in most cases. They
can be found in English translation in many different editions,
often at the websites that follow the list.

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Anonymous

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ****
Several manuscripts of this survive, the first part being Biblical
history, the useful part detailing English events up to 924.
In that year, many copies were distributed. That at Canturbury
was continued up to 1066, at Worcester to 1079, and up to 1154
in Peterborough. It was researched in or compiled out of older
sources, like the Mercian Register, the Northumbrian Gesta, or
the Battle of Brunanburh. Several translations are available.
T2

Anonymous

The Lay of the Cid ****

translated by R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon, and published
in Berkeley, California, by the University of California Press
in the year 1919 as part of the series entitled Semicentennial
Publications of the University of California: 1868-1918. Available
at OMACL (see below)

The best of the versions of the grand legend of Rodrigo Diaz
de Bivar, relating events from his exile from Castile in 1081
until shortly before his death in 1099. T3

Assorted Anonymous Icelanders

Egils saga, or the Saga of Egil

Eiriks saga rauda, or the Saga of Eirik the Red
***
Composed in the early 1200s, about the settlement in 985 of Icelanders
and their voyages to North America, which they called Vinland.
While there is a distinct nugget of historical tradition, it
is not easy to separate it from literary imagination dressing
things up in parts

Gragas, or Grey Goose ****
Preserved in late thirteenth century manuscripts, this law code
dates from the twelfth century. While revelatory of Medieval
Iceland, to assume the same laws applied all over the Viking
world in earlier centuries is like assuming the US had the same
laws in 1850 as in 2000. T3

Grettir the Strong ****

Groenlendingasaga, or the Saga of the Greenlanders
***
Composed in the early 1200s, while it may be based on oral tradition,
it is not the best history, allowing a good deal of fancy and
disagreeing on many points with the story of Erik the Red. T3

Landnamabok, or The Book of the Settlements ***
A twelfth-century work that survives in later editions, it disagrees
with Ari (below) as to who first discovered Iceland. It may largely
have been geared to bolstering the land-claims of present holders
over challengers. T3

Njalssaga, or the Saga of Burnt Njal ****
Interesting in parts, once it settles into the pattern of the
two feuding wives finding followers or relatives to kill a few
more of the other's it can get rather boring, especially as the
husbands keep meeting at the annual Thing and refusing not to
be friends. From its lack of better dramatic structure probably
quite historical. It was written down about 1280, and contains
mention, as ancestral, the Battle of Clontarf, 1014. T3

Ari, known as Thorgilsson or Frodi

Islendingabok, or The Book of Iceland ****
Written about 1120-1130 by the foster-son of the son of the first
bishop of Iceland, this is the best history he could compile
from "learned people" of his generation, though the
colonization took place from about 870-930. Interestingly, he
claims there was a colony of Irish monks who fled the Norse (then
pagan) settlers, leaving religious artifacts behind them. Archaeologists
can find no monastic remains, and believe that the Irish artifacts
were brought to Iceland by the large contingent of Irish-Norse
settlers. So either the archaeologists are smoking funny weeds,
or Ari could be that far wrong on events. T3

Comnena, Anna

The Alexiad
Valuable for the Byzantine view of the Frankish Crusaders. T2

Joinville, Jean de, and Geoffroi de Villehardouin

Chronicles of the Crusades ****
Penguin Classics, NY
A period description of events, two of those source documents
you should read to see what the people at the time thought of
their actions, without the filter of later attitudes. Joinville
was a participant in the Seventh Crusade, Villehardouin one of
the founders of the Latin Empire in the Fourth Crusade, becoming
lord of Messina. Can be found separately online. T2

Paris, Matthew
Matthew Paris was a Benedictine monk of some note, who was once
summoned to Norway by King Haakon to put an abbey to rights. Estimated
to be born about 1200, he continued and to some extent upgraded
the Chronicle kept at his home monastery of St. Alban's, taking
over from Roger of Wendover. The abrupt end of the Chronicle in
1259 is usually taken to indicate Matthew's death.

The Chronicle of Matthew Paris ****
Most chronicles were written decades or centuries after the fact,
but these were put down within a year or two of what they describe,
including a rare English earthquake. T2-3

The Illustrated Chronicles of Matthew Paris ****
Alan Sutton, London

The Life of St. Edmund ****
Alan Sutton, London; trans. by C. H. Lawrence; 184 pg
Gives a unique window on England, the Church, and higher education
in the 13th century. St. Edmund was not only Archbishop of Canterbury
from 1233 to 1240, but a master at Oxford University. T3

Saxo Grammaticus

History of the Danes ****

originally 1208

Not as obsessed with church matters as some chroniclers,
those these are still important. Covers from legend to 1202.
Early kings fight giants to win their queens, and generally fun
reading. T2

Snorri Sturluson

Heimskringla, or History
of the Kings of Norway ****
Also known as "The Circle of the World" Sturluson wrote
this about 1230, to reinforce the claims of the Norwegian royal
line, by tracing it from legend to 1177. Fifteen sagas of rulers,
from the 8th C through the 12th:

Halfdan the Black Saga;

Harald Harfager's Saga;

Hakon the Good's Saga;

Saga of King Harald Grafeld and of Earl Hakon Son of Sigurd;

King Olaf Trygvason's Saga;

Saga of Olaf Haraldson (St. Olaf);

Saga of Magnus the Good;

Saga of Harald Hardrade;

Saga of Olaf Kyrre;

Magnus Barefoot's Saga;

Saga of Sigurd the Crusader and His Brothers Eystein and
Olaf;

Saga of Magnus the Blind and of Harald Gille;

Saga of Sigurd, Inge, and Eystein, the Sons of Harald;

Saga of Hakon Herdebreid ("Hakon the Broad-Shouldered");

Magnus Erlingson's Saga.

Research tier either T1 (get a feeling for the world of saga)
or T2 (you're easily confused by unfamiliar cultures not matching
what you expect).

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Websites

Alpamysh dastan ****

http://webpages.acs.ttu.edu/hpaksoy/chapter_3.html

This dastan (epic) from Central Asia breaks open a new area
of the globe for the medieval reader. Translated by H. B. Paksoy,
it is available free of charge (but still under copyright) at
Carrie Books.

Each work (play, essay, epic) loads as a single page, making
it easy to Search for specific words, and has a Download option.
Very large works are available as one page or three, to cut time.
Get the "unlimited time for $20" deal from a direct
web service with a local access number for you, and you can consider
this site part of your home library that doesn't have to be dusted.
This is what we all hoped the Internet would be!

Halsall is collecting texts in translation, and also providing
links to other sites like Berkeley, so as not to duplicate effort.
This huge initial page links internally and externally to a list
of period works, from the late Byzantine-early Christian age to
the early Renaissance. Wonderful source, attractive without glitz,
many matrices of approach (e.g., by a topic like women's roles
or by a period). Trying very hard to include areas besides the
sphere of the Latin church, notably Byzantine and Islamic activities.